Cyrus, Affleck and the Rorschach test of popular culture

Miley Cyrus’ hypersexualized performance of her hit song, “We Can’t Stop,” followed by an even raunchier duet with Robin Thicke of his summer smash, “Blurred Lines,” on Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards was a Twitter phenomenon. The Internet hasn’t seen so much shock, awe and outrage since days previously, when Warner Bros. announced Ben Affleck would be playing Batman in the forthcoming movie, “Superman Vs. Batman.”

With Cyrus, there were any number of serious issues being discussed. Some critics decried the lowering standards of popular culture … although there was always this sense that if we weren’t talking about a young star who’s previous image wasn’t, well, “Hannah Montana,” that maybe things would have blown over quickly. Still, although we’ve been having this discussion in one form or another since Elvis was on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” one has to concede they might have a point. On the other hand, a different chorus rose up to chide the moralistic crowd for “slut shaming” Cyrus, and they have some pretty good points, too.

And then there are the critics who’ve been criticizing Cyrus since the video for “We Can’t Stop” first aired, accusing her of cultural appropriation and “accessorizing with black people,” as the feminist blog Jezebel and others phrased it. And really, I’m not the best guy to comment on twerking or rachet culture, but at a glance, I can see where a lot of folks might take offense to the image of Cyrus surrounded by black backup dancers dressed up as toys, and being — ahem — manhandled by the onetime Disney starlet. There are definitely some questionable semiotics at play there. And even still, I’m struck by a black friend on Facebook, noting that twerking isn’t any part of his culture that he’s aware of, and that he’s not sure what exactly is being appropriated.

It’s enough to make you yearn for the days of Kanye West interrupting people. And you know what? Everybody has a point. Every last commenter —save perhaps those who are spending a bit too much time feeling self-righteous or drooling over a 20-year-old singer — has had something serious and important to say.

But the thing of it is, almost none of it has been about Miley Cyrus.

In one scantily clad moment, Cyrus has become a flashpoint for an entire culture’s worth of anxieties, deep-seated questions about sex and race, about the limits and boundaries of culture burbling up to the surface from a deep, collective unconscious. In a very real way, her VMA performance has become a Rorschach test, with both Cyrus’ critics and defenders bringing their own issues to the moment. Which, of course, is what popular culture is for.

Popular culture, aside from simply being entertainment, is the place in our collective consciousness where these sorts of complex issues play out in relative safety, a sort of neutral zone where the culture defines where it is at a given moment in time, adopting and rejecting tropes. There’s very little conscious thought put into this process, beyond whatever the intention of the individual artist is at a given moment, but nonetheless, it’s this psychic battleground that gives popular culture its weight, why things that seem, on the whole, rather small prove so convulsive, at least for awhile.

And as I think about the whole Cyrus affair, it’s hard not to think back to 2007, when she played the DCU Center. I remember the lines of young girls, their mothers in tow, waiting to see the TV idol. It wasn’t that long ago, but Cyrus would have been only about 14, and she meant something to the tweenage girls who adored her. She was proof they could be anything they wanted … a girl almost their own age who had the world in her hand.

It’s funny. I haven’t seen a lot of commentary from young women in their mid-to-late teens, the girls who grew up on “Hannah Montana,” reacting to Cyrus’ performance. I’d kind of like to hear some, because I have no idea what’s going on in their minds right now. But I kind of know what it’s like to see a symbol of your childhood in danger of being tarnished. After all, I was a huge Batman fan as a kid.

When my father died, when I was very young, my mother encouraged my growing love of comic books, a love which escalated my reading ability immensely. Batman was one of the characters that resonated most with me — he had lost both his parents, after all, and managed to turn that sadness into something … well … I didn’t have the words for it, then. I would have said “cool” when I was in first or second grade. But I suppose, in my head, it was bigger than that. It made me happy to imagine that Batman was out there somewhere, keeping me safe from danger. Like I said, I was young.

But just because I’m an adult now, and know full well that Batman is just a character in comics and movies, doesn’t mean that resonance has faded. There’s always a part of me that’s going to cling to all of the things he symbolized to me when I was young, the enormous sense of insecurity and loss I had no real language for, yet. This is what I bring to Batman.

With that in mind, I find some sympathy for the fans who railed against Affleck in the role, although I don’t really share it. Sure, he was awful in “Daredevil,” but he had much raved-about turns more recently in “Argo” and “the Town,” and honestly, I quite like him in Kevin Smith’s films. Even “Jersey Girl.”

But no, I get it. Batman, Hannah Montana, things like that … they touch some of us in a way that’s almost primal. For many, they’re the building blocks of who we’ve shaped ourselves into. And as such, they’ll always be a lightning rod when those childhood images are cast into an uncomfortable light. And no, we’re not really ever talking about the relatively small thing that’s at the center of the pop culture storm. They’re doing what they’ve always done: standing in for the things for which we have no real language, the things that are too big to talk about otherwise. (Victor D. Infante)